MACturi's biggest mistake

[Bayfieldgopher]

This forum was better when you were dead...please return to your coffin and stay there.

That was a good one Philly!

 

[gopherdudepart2]

We will never get the answer to "What IF?"

Bag on the former coach all you want but the two morons who made the choice to fire coach Mason, Macturi and Bruininks got to keep there jobs and subsequently hired
an unqualified coach Brewster who set this program back to the Wacker years level of wins and blow out losses, and the new coach so far who has lost to NMSU, NDSU
and had his rear end handed to him by a first year staff at Michigan.

I to would have liked to have seen what coach Mason with a decent budget for coordinators and the new TCF "Stadium" which Mason has as much a claim to the legacy
of helping get that thing built as Maturi does, what that level of support would have looked like on the football field. My guess is it would have looked pretty damn good.
To bad the two weenies had no foresight to stay the course at least into the new place, and even worse hired a guy who was no better than a Used car salesmen in evaluation of talent and coaching them up on the field. Without the hiring of that boob "Brewster" no O-lineman in an entire recruiting class and never any D-lineman to speak of, we would not be in the predicament we are in today.
Our only hope is that coach Kill can survive this debacle of a season with his health intact and we start getting players that can play his system and work and give as much effort as some of the young freshman guys are showing.
We cannot change or undo the "what if" or what could have been, that part we will never know. But if enough people speak up, we can help get rid of the boob
who never gave us the chance to find out. He does not deserve the extension, that should be the goal, get Joel Macturi retired and as far away from the athletic department as possible. Joel should know enough to ride off into the sunset before he does any more damage.

 

[imthewalrus]

Gopherdudepart2: VERY well said. It is up to you and folks who share a realistic view of what has transpired to carry that message forward. I join you in spirit. Perhaps you can enlist the assistance of the student section to voice an opinion of the state of the football program. Coach Kill has been given a real mess to try to work with. You have a great understanding of the situation. Keep the message alive! Carry the message for those who, for what ever reasons have been blocked from carrying that message. The torch has been passed. Fight the good fight. Never let the ba$tards get you down Gopherdudepart2! The future CAN be better than the past has been IF and only IF we learn from the past. Stay with your message!

; 0 )

 

[GopherInPittsburgh]

I love this forum

 

[Ski U Mah 55]

Not finding $1mm and giving it to Mase to hire a DC who could coach and recruit.

I'm happy that my coining the "MACturi" name has stuck.

You should've stayed dead.

 

[Replacement Gopher]

Gopherdudepart2: VERY well said. It is up to you and folks who share a realistic view of what has transpired to carry that message forward. I join you in spirit. Perhaps you can enlist the assistance of the student section to voice an opinion of the state of the football program. Coach Kill has been given a real mess to try to work with. You have a great understanding of the situation. Keep the message alive! Carry the message for those who, for what ever reasons have been blocked from carrying that message. The torch has been passed. Fight the good fight. Never let the ba$tards get you down Gopherdudepart2! The future CAN be better than the past has been IF and only IF we learn from the past. Stay with your message!

; 0 )

Ummmm, what message would that be?

 

[imthewalrus]

Ummmm, you must be able to read, replacementgopher. Just read what Gopherdudepart2 had to say. His message is very clear...


; 0 )

 

[6 Nov 1999]

The Kessel, 19 November 1942 – 31 January 1943

Don't dwell on the past. Move on.

zambam,

1. We cannot move on until this horrible teratoma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratoma in the form of Joel Maturi, who has traumatized, beleaguered, sickened, and irreparably damaged University of Minnesota revenue sports programs is summarily relieved of his duties as Athletic Director, and any other duties or collateral positions he may hold at the University of Minnesota.
2. I find most disturbing Sid Hartman’s revelation that Kathryn F. Brown http://www.umorepark.umn.edu/planning/llc/governors/brown/index.htm, Joel Maturi’s immediate supervisor http://www.academic.umn.edu/accreditation/orgcharts/b_pres.pdf, was copartner in the decision to have Joel Maturi deliver the termination notice to Glen Mason. As I have stated many times before, I find it totally irrelevant who was the authority that gave the order to pull the trigger, be it Robert Bruininks, The Regents of the University of Minnesota, Kathryn F. Brown, Paul Tagliabue, Red McCombs, Ziggy Wilf, or Joel Maturi himself.
a. The Athletic Director is the firewall between the coaches and all other external power brokers, which includes Morrill Hall. If any of the aforementioned gave the order to Joel to deliver the termination notice to Glen Mason, then in my mind Joel Maturi failed a sacred responsibility. Joel should have had the character and integrity to stand up to them, refuse the order, and tender his own resignation in protest.
b. If the decision to fire Glen Mason was indeed Joel Maturi’s and Joel’s alone, then he should have resigned before he fired Tim Brewster, in acknowledgement of his own personal mistakes and lack of judgment. He did neither.
3. Joel Maturi is at it again. Recent news indicates he just approved a three year contract extension to his good personal friend Don Lucia. I no longer follow Golden Gopher Hockey much anymore. Yet the pattern is all too familiar. Grant an extension to the coach, then pull the rug out from under him a year later, and then pay a huge sum of money to the coach to buy out the contract. If this is not the pinnacle of financial and fiduciary irresponsibility, then what is it? More to the point, whose money is it that Joel is playing with and throwing around like confetti?
4. I am tired of the propaganda machine that seeks to paint Glen Mason as not caring about the football program and giving up on it. This is a convenient story propagated by the NFL / Vikings cartel. Glen had totally outmaneuvered and outflanked the NFL / Vikings cartel in succeeding to convince the Minnesota Legislature and Governor to bankroll a new Golden Gopher football stadium with public money. The NFL / Vikings had unsuccessfully been trying to extort such a deal from the Minnesota Legislature and Governor for many years, threatening to move the Vikings franchise many times as punishment for not bankrolling a new stadium for the Vikings with public money. The NFL / Vikings cartel bosses were infuriated by what Glen accomplished with the Legislature. They were terrified that if Glen was allowed to continue as head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the new TCF Bank Stadium, Golden Gopher football starts resurging, consistently playing .500+ football within in the Big Ten Conference. This would constitute unacceptable competition for Vikings ticket sales and royalties. Glen Mason had to be fired. Joel Maturi was the trigger man.
5. Let us remember that despite whatever anybody may claim, Glen Mason was the best football coach we had since Cal Stoll. There was no good reason for firing Cal Stoll. Likewise, there was no good reason for firing Glen Mason.
6. In the annals of NCAA Division 1A athletic directors, Joel Maturi’s leadership, decision making, and stewardship of the University of Minnesota revenue sports programs begs comparison and runs parallel with Herr Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus’ leadership, decision making, and stewardship of the much vaunted German Sixth Army.
7. We must break out of The Kessel entrapment which Joel Maturi has led us into. Let us hope and pray that Jerry Kill will lead us out of “The Kessel.”

 

[supadupafly]

Ummmm, you must be able to read, replacementgopher. Just read what Gopherdudepart2 had to say. His message is very clear...


; 0 )

have to agree with wren here. it is pretty clear if you actually take the time to read and not just scan it quickly.

 

[kellyleeks]

Wren, you were right about the Mason firing and the Brewster hiring. I was wrong. Too bad no one else here is willing to say it.

Funny that the bitching is towards Wren, 6 Nov, and myself, as we've been posting here longer than 95% of anyone else. The truth is that the board you all like was a great forum in '98 when it was just the few of us. We are the guys that made this board.

For those of you that couldn't take the Leeks is dead joke by Tipsy, Lloyd and I, you sure seemed to enjoy our ChinaGopher Wisconsin story. Nice work, Tipsy.

 

[Bo Darville]

I didn't know Joel was Scottish.

 

[tikited]

Wren, you were right about the Mason firing and the Brewster hiring. I was wrong. Too bad no one else here is willing to say it.

Funny that the bitching is towards Wren, 6 Nov, and myself, as we've been posting here longer than 95% of anyone else. The truth is that the board you all like was a great forum in '98 when it was just the few of us. We are the guys that made this board.

For those of you that couldn't take the Leeks is dead joke by Tipsy, Lloyd and I, you sure seemed to enjoy our ChinaGopher Wisconsin story. Nice work, Tipsy.

I finally admitted the mistake on Mason here recently. We'd still be going to crappy bowl games if Mase was still coach-which I'd take over this. We wouldn't be going to a New Years bowl though-which many can't live with.

I still think you should have gone with a "busted in Canada for drug possession" story. Just my opinion, but you could have still posted from prison and had lots of different story lines to play with.

I still wish the chair story was true-I really do.

 

[dpodoll68]

Wren, you were right about the Mason firing and the Brewster hiring. I was wrong. Too bad no one else here is willing to say it.

Funny that the bitching is towards Wren, 6 Nov, and myself, as we've been posting here longer than 95% of anyone else. The truth is that the board you all like was a great forum in '98 when it was just the few of us. We are the guys that made this board.

For those of you that couldn't take the Leeks is dead joke by Tipsy, Lloyd and I, you sure seemed to enjoy our ChinaGopher Wisconsin story. Nice work, Tipsy.

BFD. Who cares what you did 13 years ago? All I know is that your posts since you were allowed to rejoin the board have sucked. Not funny, not informative, not educational, etc. You could package all your posts over the past year and market them as an effective cure for insomnia.

 

[50PoundHead]

I think it's important to remember that the Mason firing and the Brewster hiring were two steps in the same process. I thought, and still think, that Mason had played out his string and it was time for a change. It's obvious that Brewster was not the change that was needed.

As for the earlier comments about defensive coordinator and salaries for other assistants, it has been pointed out a number of times that we had a number of good-to-very-good position coaches run through the program under Mason. Unfortunately, they all gravitated toward more stable programs.

Mason's fault? Maturi's fault? Hard to prove anything either way, but I never got the impression (and I could be wrong) that Mason was wedded to closely to any of these guys (except maybe Gordy Shaw). I can't remember him putting up a fight to keep a guy. Again, I could be wrong, but I never got the impression that Mason was trying to build a "family" atmosphere in the program. Some of the failure to solve that problem can justifiably be placed at the feet of Maturi, but I think the lion's share has to remain with Mason, who made in excess of a million dollars more than Maturi did. If Glen wanted to keep guys around, he could have found a way.

 

[imthewalrus]

Kelly Leeks: I get no satisfaction about having been "right" about Mason. I just feel pretty damn sad that I don't even bother to go on Big Ten road trips any longer, because there really isn't much of a chance for the Gophers right now to pull off a 1999 PSU win or a 2000 OSU win or a 2005 Michigan win. It hasn't even been worth it to go to Evanston...and I LOVE that road trip to Northwestern!

But, in all due time, once the "house has been cleaned administratively from the brewball fiasco and Coach Kill and his staff have a chance to win the hearts, minds and attitudes of their entire squad, the culture of the program will change positively enough to bring this program back to competetivness and, really what more can ANY of us ask?

So, I found the brewball era to be less fun than the Masonball era. The administration certainly did some pretty strange and less than productive things though. But, now we move on to the Killball era. There will also be totally new administrators...both a new prexy and a new AD.

What the hell people...welcome Kelly back. We need all the Gopher fans we can get. I still recall meeting Kelly during halftime of a game against Northwestern when a group of posters from what was this site under Jason and Dave all met up on the second level of the damn dome with folks like Big Al67 and lots of other posters. You flew in from quite a distance away and I believe you were still in the Air Force or maybe were just ready to be discharged. You never know...I have a hunch that things, in the due course of time will start slowly improving. And as the Gophers become more competetive again...it will be fun to go on road trips again and then maybe some bowl games will start happening. Some of those trips to El Paso and Nashville were a lot of fun.

Now THAT is the way college football is supposed to be! Who cares about having to go to the top of the BCS. That just is NOT going to ever happen at Minnesota. But IF and WHEN Killball starts becoming competetive again...the road trips and the bowl games will be remind us why we have all remained fans of Golden Gopher Football for such a damn long time and through thick and thin...and some pretty good times and even now through the worst of times again.

Quite frankly, Kelly, I think you have a lot of good observations and it's kind of nice having some other Gopher Fans who have some personality! If we keep it simple and don't play quite so many "games" people just might realize that a nice, diverse group of fans can have some pretty fun posting sessions here.

Not everyone has to agree or always sitck to a "company line..."

So, it's good to see you back here Kelly Leeks. Of course, some people will probably try to trash you just because I welcomed you back. Would you believe it? Some people around here don't like me. Some use the foolish excuse that they don't post as often as they might because I post here as often as I do...or, maybe just because I post here sometimes. Who'd have ever thought I could be THAT powerful? Well, I'll keep on contrasting and let the chips fall where they may. But, sometimes I get suggestions about what I should and shouldn't talk about. Oh well...if it works...ok. If not...I suppose that's ok too. I'd certainly never be anyone's loss, but on the other hand some people might get bored not having me to kick around or call names.

; 0 )



But, I heard a rumor that GOPHERHOLE likes to have as many people "hitting" here on this site as is possible. So, I post often! It's always best to do today what you can because who knows what tomorrow will bring?

You do have some good football observations...keep 'em coming!

 

[BrewsterBooster]

Kelly Leeks and Wayne Rendahl

These two head cases are still around blathering mindless, meaningless twaddle. And I thought the world was free of them. They need to get involved with Occupy Wall Street to fulfill their delusions of enlightenment.

 

[6 Nov 1999]

Welcome Home Kelly Leeks, USAF Veteran

These two head cases are still around blathering mindless, meaningless twaddle. And I thought the world was free of them. They need to get involved with Occupy Wall Street to fulfill their delusions of enlightenment.

Kelly, I never realized you are a USAF veteran. Welcome home. Thank you for volunteering to defend the USA. I salute you! Thank you for bleeding Maroon and Gold. Now I know I am going to make BrewsterBooster mad by suggesting that The Loon be reinstated to this forum. So few people bleed Maroon and Gold like The Loon does. I miss his observations, which often pi$$ed a lot of people off, but forced one to think critically. I hope he returns, and soon!

 

[Replacement Gopher]

have to agree with wren here. it is pretty clear if you actually take the time to read and not just scan it quickly.

Dude took a couple hundred words to say, "Fire Maturi". I don't think that's a unique sentiment around here.

 

[John Galt]

Accepting the job

 

[station19]

He should give himself an extension. That would signal we are on the right path.